Rust’s Rules of Negotiation
November 17, 2025
Over the last 20 years, I’ve been involved in negotiations for everything from small sales contracts to IPOs.

If you’re trying to build something new, you’re probably going to have to do some cold email outreach at some point. Most people are tempted to send zillions of spam messages, hoping volume will become leads. It almost never works in the early days.
The simple rule to observe is: don’t send emails you would ignore. If you follow this, you will get a lot more leads and you can tell this just from your own behavior, for example:
Don’t waste your time sending emails you would ignore. Better to send lower volume but higher quality outreach.